The Benevolent Liar/Chapter 15

It was true that the prospector and Specimen Jones had ridden away together.

“I sent for you, Specimen,” explained Josh, at that earlier hour in the evening, “because I need you for two things: One, that I want to reach Cash Vance's cabin by the back way you told me about and which, of course, I don't know; and the second, because I've got to have somebody I can depend on to sort of be my rear guard. I can take care of Vance all by myself, but I don't want to take chances on that Karluk Pete comin' up the rear path to pay Vance a visit, and perhaps pluggin' me through the window when my back's turned. So you're the selected party. Sabe?”

“Sure!”

“And, Specimen, I ain't quite certain what may happen, because it's come to this: I'm goin' to wipe the old, cracked slate carryin' his and my account! Goin' to wipe it clean, to-night, if one of us has to be left on the floor for the coroner to look over. So, if you don't feel like bein' mixed up in it too far, you can just take me as far as that trail you know about, then forget all I've said and all about me, and ride home.”

“Nope! It won't do!” asserted Specimen. “Pete might show up and do just what you said—shoot you when you were not lookin'. Besides, you never knew of my tryin' to spare my own hide at the expense of a friend, did you, Josh?”

“Humph! Course not! Well, here we go!”

“Got something new on Vance?” Specimen asked, after a time, observing the grim face of the prospector.

“I've got this, Specimen: that it was Cash Vance's boot that made the trail down there in the pass that night when I was shot.”

“Then you're doin' the right thing, Josh. We both know that the one safe rule when a man is out for you is to find him and get him first,” Specimen said gravely. “You can leave it to me to see that Pete don't interfere.”

After which, being bent on serious business, neither talked as they rode steadily and easily toward their destination.

Vance sitting alone in his cabin, the room brilliant with the electric lights that, being developed by his own water, were used freely, was absorbed in sorting some papers on the flat-topped desk in his living room, and there was a most sinister scowl on his face as he totaled the sums he had given to Karluk Pete in the preceding three years. His pale-blue eyes—the eyes of a man-killer—were as hard and cruel as flint. He had gone to the limit of harassment. He was slowly coming to the determination to kill his tormentor at the first favorable opportunity. A habitual caution alone had restrained his hand a half dozen times before; for he was not afraid. There was but one man living of whom he stood in awe—Josh Price, who had humiliated him years before and threatened him openly on his advent in Shingle.

Nothing save the fact that Josh Price had somehow become partners with the son of Bill Rogers, dead and gone, had deterred Vance from striving to drive Tom Rogers out of the country where his presence was a constant and ugly reminder of Vance's ugly past. It was a past that he wished to forget, inasmuch as he was steadily growing rich, could retire comfortably at any time he chose and indulge in the fleshpots for which he had hankered, but eschewed, until he was completely beyond financial worry.

His conscience did not in the least trouble him. He had none. His confidence had grown, nourished by his escape from several episodes where his neck might have paid the forfeit, until it had been an easy matter up to that day when Josh Price, wandering carelessly afield, had invaded Shingle. And Karluk Pete, at first a mere stupid fool, blustering, brawling, bragging, had learned his hold and developed an insatiable demand.

Vance sat at his desk, balanced between his greed for more money and a desire to sell the mine at the big price it would readily command, and thus escape all future worry. But Pete must be put out of the way forever before such departure would insure future immunity from blackmail. He folded the papers carefully, laid them aside, and looked up. In a terrible flash it was revealed to him that it was too late! Josh Price had entered so noiselessly that his coming had not been heard, and, with gun in hand, stood leaning against the wall beside the door, eying him.

For what seemed a long time, neither spoke. The cry that started to Vance's throat choked in its utterance. His ready hand that had started convulsively to the drawer where he kept a loaded pistol stopped as if transfixed as the prospector's gun gave a slight, significant flip that could forecast but one event—death. It was the intruder who first spoke, and so quietly that his voice seemed qualified with uncanny penetration:

“Well, Cash Vance, your time is up.”

The sound broke the spell in which Vance was held.

“It is, eh? What do you mean by that?” he demanded, with some of his habitual coldness.

The prospector stood with unshifting eyes, and for a moment did not speak. His very attitude chilled the man behind the table more certainly than had juries who had tried him for his life. There was an appalling deliberation about this avenger, come silently from the outer night to settle all scores. Vance broke momentarily and twitched involuntarily with nervousness. The movement was misinterpreted by the man with the gun. For an instant the hand clutching the familiar weapon seemed to restrict as if about to hurl death, unerring, irrevocable.

“Wait! For God's sake, wait!” Vance pleaded.

“Then suppose you put your hand up, walk away from that desk, and stand with your back tome for a minute, while I go through you. That is, unless you're in a hurry to have the party ended and over with. Either way you like suits me.”

There was no possibility of mistaking the truth of the statement. It was true! The prospector would have killed him as remorselessly as he would have put a broken-backed rattlesnake out of misery. Reluctantly Vance got to his feet and obeyed. He felt the pressure of the pistol to his back in a vital spot, and the swift movement of the hand that searched him for weapons, of which he had none.

“Good!” said the prospector. “You may sit down over there by the wall.”

Vance found himself with the prospector barring the way to the door. Josh sidled to the desk, pulled open one drawer after another without relaxing his watchfulness, found Vance's gun, and slipped it into his own pocket. He seated himself in the chair by the desk, after pulling it far enough away to enable him to leap clear in case of need.

“You hound!” he said. “It's taken me a long time to get the goods on you, but as sure as there's a Big Livin' Justice up above us all, I've got it!”

“Came to abuse me after you got the drop, did you?” Vance snarled.

“You can't be abused!” was the sarcastic rejoinder. “There's nothin' mean enough to say to you, or about you, that wouldn't be truth. Truth abuses no man. Now, I'm goin' to caution you before I go on. It's not your night to talk. I'll do most of the talkin' and all of the shootin'. Get me?”

Vance nodded a surly nod.

“Very well. To begin with, you robbed my old pardner, Bill Rogers, out of this mine. You did it by gettin' two fellers to swear to a false prior location. One of 'em is alive, and made his affidavit to that effect. Karluk Pete I'm talkin' of. Do you deny that?”

“You've nothing to prove it.”

“I haven't, eh? Did it ever strike you that a man that gives an affidavit once would sure do it again if he got his price?”

He saw Vance's eyes glare viciously and knew that his bluff had gone home. He did not pause in his indictment.

“You laid a plan to rob your own gold wagon!” Josh declared, with the certainty that had come to him through long analysis. “A man beat you to it up near Pinnacle Rock, where you was lyin' in wait. You let him turn the trick, and if he hadn't found the haul too heavy to run with, and hidden it, you'd probably have killed him. You'd have done it anyhow if you had known who he was; but you didn't. It looked good to you. You let him go, and sneaked away. You saw a way to double the deal—get your clean-up back and skin the insurance company, without runnin' any risk whatever. Another man robbed the wagon, that was sure, and it was good luck for you, because you robbed the robber as well as the insurance company.”

Vance, when his prosecutor began, assumed an impassable, bored air; but as Josh proceeded, and each shot went home, Vance turned white with astonishment. He had heard nothing but the truth.

“It's a lie!” he declared, so vehemently that his own guilt was thereby proved.

“Oh, no, it isn't! I've got the proof!” coldly declared the prospector. “Got it in two ways. I trailed you myself, and took the measurement of your boot, and another person looked over the top of the Pinnacle on the night when you went back for the gold, saw you take it, recognized you, and will swear on the stand that it was you she saw.”

“A woman, eh?” Vance gasped.

“That doesn't matter. I've got the witness, and I can send you over the road on that count.”

“Maybe, and maybe not!” Vance declared defiantly; but his temporary return of nerve was blasted by the prospector's next words:

“That is, I could if that was what I was after; but it ain't! Cash Vance, you're never goin' to be called into court. I'm the court on the next count, and you know what that means!”

There was no mistaking the significance of his words, and Vance drew a deep breath of terror.

“When I got Karluk Pete's affidavit—you remember that time, all right!—he weakened, and you saw what was comin' and had to have it back. There was only one way to get it from me. Both you and Pete knew it. Neither of you was man enough to fight for it, so you waylaid me on my trail and shot me for it—from behind—but the moonlight made the aim bad, and”

He paused, for he saw a swift light flame in Vance's eyes, and knew that this time he was astray in his conjecture.

“That's not so!” Vance shouted. “I can prove an alibi.”

Like a flash the prospector's quick wit caught for another weapon. He had no hesitancy in carrying his bluff through.

“That's another question,” he declared; “a question between you and Karluk Pete, who has made an affidavit that you did do it, and that he saw you.”

Vance went suddenly white with anger, and swore volubly, cursing the absent tool in a wild outburst of broken temper until the prospector rapped with his hard knuckles on the desk and silenced him.

“You stop that kind of swearin'!” he roared. “I'm a believer in the Lord Almighty! He's a friend of mine, and I won't let you sit there and use His name the way you're doin' any longer!”

Vance suddenly took refuge in a growling undertone, and struggled hard to calm himself. It was plain to his inquisitor that his nerves were frayed to the utmost.

“I came here to kill you for that, Cash Vance,” the prospector said firmly, and Vance felt himself trembling under the strain; “but, since I got here, I remembered that I owed somethin' to some one else, the son of the man you robbed, the youngster you made life hell for, my pardner, Tom Rogers. No, you keep your mouth shut till I get through, or ['ll change my mind again. What you're up against is this: The penitentiary—sure!—for the holdup business, if I let you off. Another term for attempted murder, also, if I let you off—and I never before wanted to kill a man as much as I want to kill you! It seems to me it's the only just thing to do—to shoot you down like a mad coyote, and kick you while you're gaspin'”

It was the first time that he had raised his voice to a pitch of anger, and it sounded a pent vindictiveness beyond his words. His hand twitched on his gun, as if he fought his own impulse to slay. His eyes narrowed, his jaws shut until he spoke between his firm, white teeth, and he half rose to his feet. Vance instinctively threw an arm upward to shield his face as from a shot, and for a moment they were transfixed in this attitude, until, recovering himself, the prospector slowly settled back to his seat.

“Enough of this!” he said coldly. “Vance, you've got one chance for your life—just one! No more! And I'm givin' it to you because I've got to think of Tom Rogers and what's due him, and I couldn't get it if I did what I'm hungerin' to do—put five shots through your cussed skull! If I had a hundred thousand dollars, I'd give all—every cent—for the pleasure of droppin' you and seein' you kick! But a feller can't always do what he'd like to in this world, and when he's got others to think of, and So I give you one chance.”

Vance, with the cold perspiration plunging through the pores of his forehead, asked, in a whisper: “What is that chance?”

“You're goin' to deed the Horseshoe Mine to Tom Rogers—lock, stock, and barrel! You're goin' to be out of this country in twenty-four hours! You're never comin' back! You're bein' allowed to get away with all you stole—more than any other perjured thief was ever allowed. And it hurts me to let you get away so easily: That's your only chance. You take that chance within five minutes, or the coroner of this county will wonder, within a little while from now, how many shots went through one hole in your head, and whether that hole or the hole in your heart was the cause of your pa§sin' out! It's now fifteen minutes past ten by that clock up there you bought with money stolen from my Tom. In twenty minutes you'll either agree or die! Time!”

He fixed his eyes on Vance, who writhed in his chair, looked at him questioningly as if to find one trace of weakness, and then helplessly stared at the floor. Pressed as he was, overpowered, facing certain death, Vance hesitated. The old greed held him, the old dislike of having any man triumph over him; yet he knew, as the minutes slipped by under the ticking of the clock, that he must yield. Its muffled clacking became a hammer, beating stridently on a loud gong, warning him of the passage of time. He looked sullenly at the watchful, waiting man in the chair, who sat steadily as a rock, inexorable as fate, and read the purposefulness of him. He remembered tales of frontier battles, historic, where the man confronting him had won against seemingly insurmountable odds and The ticking of the clock sounded faster, as if hurrying him to decision. Anyhow, he had enough. There was the sum put away in the banks of San Francisco against possible exigencies; the farm investment in the Santa Clara Valley; the stocks in that Los Angeles enterprise, and

He stiffened as he thought of a loophole. A transfer, to be legal, necessitated witnesses, seals, the presence of a qualified official! That meant time! Time to get away from under the sinister stare of the gun! Time to plot! He would agree, and

The hand holding the gun that had been laid across the edge of the desk suddenly shut tighter, leaped upward for the frontiersman's quick shot, and Vance had barely an instant in which to shout: “Good! I agree!”

The hand came almost reluctantly down, and a voice said: “You took a long chance. I'm only half glad—for Tommy's sake. Come over here and write. Let's see. I've got the regular legal form here in my pocket on a deed a lawyer drawed when I bought the Bonanza. We'll just copy that—changin' the names. Sit down, and don't waste no time, either, because it's gettin' late!”

Even then Vance hoped to hoodwink his persecutor; but the latter stood behind him and compared what he wrote with the printed form he had laid upon the desk. There was still one chance—a notary would be required. Painfully Vance wrote, the habit of clear, steady chirography alone guiding his pen. His mind was groping hither and yon on possibilities for evasion. Once he made a slight mistake through sheer absence of mind, and was instantly alarmed by a sharp command from behind: “Tear that sheet up and write it over again! No shenanigan! Three mistakes and out! You left out the words, 'of my own free will.' They're there on the printed paper.”

He recognized the constant vigilance behind, and forced himself to his unwelcome task. He neared the bottom of the page slyly, gleeful; for such a document, unwitnessed, unsealed, could have small value. It would necessitate a journey to Shingle probably, and in that journey many things might happen. An instant's relaxation on the part of the watcher, and—a dead man in the road, the recovery of the paper, and a long mystery as to who had murdered Josh Price! His pen scratched laboriously, the noise of its passage drowning the steady ticking of the clock.

“There it is.” he said, signing his name with a flourish and blotting it hopefully.

“I've been thinkin',” said a puzzled voice behind him, “we ought to have this sealed and witnessed by some notary public or justice of the peace or some one of that sort.”

“I can't supply you that,” Vance said, half turning in his chair.

“He's a liar, Josh!”

Both turned, startled, toward the sound. In the window could be seen the head and shoulders of Specimen Jones, grim, ugly, and watchful.

“His bookkeeper is a notary, I know. I've seen him put his seal on papers, and he told me he was. I know where his cabin is. I'll dig him out and have him here in less'n five minutes.”

Vance settled hopelessly into his chair when the prospector said: “Good! Go get him, Specimen, and have him fetch his seal. Tell him the boss sent for him. Hurry!”

The head and shoulders disappeared, and in the still night could be heard the clump of heavily running feet. Vance sat stodgily in his chair, bent forward and thinking. They had overlooked the witnesses. He barely heard, with his divided, harassed mind, the admonitions of the prospector, who had swiftly stepped across the room and to the side of the window as if to place himself cleare of attack.

“When the notary man comes, you are to try to look pleasant. You are to tell him you signed that; that you've sold the mine to Tom Rogers, and that I'm actin' as Tom's agent. Then, when he gets his part done, you're to tell him to go back to his cabin. He'll still be up at this time.”

Vance's hope of a flaw, overthrown by the voice from the window, was again climbing, and not without foundation, inasmuch as the prospector, intent on a seal, had actually forgotten the necessity of two witnesses to such a transfer. Vance meditated. Once he dotted an “i” that he had overlooked, and crossed a forgotten “t,” but was harshly checked.

“Never mind fumblin' with a pen. I don't trust you, Vance! You're not in the clear yet. And don't forget that any move on your part, when that bookkeeper gets here, means a slug of lead. It does—if I hang for it! I swear it, and you know me!”

Again there was silence, prolonged; but suddenly Vance lifted his head hopefully. Relief was at hand. Mounted men were coming, the clatter of their horses' hoofs sounding sharply in the stillness of the night. He could not entirely suppress a triumphant grin when he glanced furtively at the giant by the window; but the latter had heard it also, and now sidled slowly along the wall, step by step, without shifting his stare from Vance.

“Cash,” he said, in a low voice, “if you're figurin' on any help, it won't go, because the first one I'll plug will be you! I've gone the limit. Here I either win or pass out; but I'll not go alone. I'll have at least one for company, and it'll be you. It's mighty lucky I wore a coat. Here and now I put my gun in my coat pocket; but all the time it'll be pointin' at you, and no one else. Your only chance will be to get rid of these friends of yours mighty quick. I'm gettin' old, and I ain't afraid to cash in my chips after one last play.”

Like am alert, expectant sentinel, he moved carelessly back until he faced the open door, through which the moonlight showed a splendid panorama of the valley, with its industrial appendage of buildings, the mill, the boiler house with its triple stacks, the long, glistening tramway from mine to breakers, and, high over all, the serene mountains, placid, contemplative, and aloof, like observers who barely noted the man-made scars in their feet and were not disturbed by the issues of human life, that insignificant, ephemeral, parasitical wriggling below.

The horses came closer in that moment of tense expectancy. The sound of their movement became more distinct in crescendo as they approached. Vance debated whether or not he dared defy the prospector at the critical moment, and decided that he could. He was too familiar with bullet wounds to doubt that more than one pocket shot ever proved fatal, expert though the marksman might be. He had but small concern as to the identity of the visitors who could interrupt. Any one would do. Luck was again playing into his hands. Some one, the leader of the visitors, was running up the steep path to his isolated cabin. He frowned. Why should any one run? And then the futility of his hope was made plain. Tom Rogers, panting, distressed by apprehension, but ready to participate, stood in the doorway, scowling as his eyes adjusted themselves to the light.

“Hello, Tommy!” the prospector drawled. “Wasn't expectin' you, but Why, hello, Frank! And there's Edie, too! Quite a happy family, eh? Well, Tommy, I've bought the Horseshoe Mine for you and already paid the price. Me and Cash was just waitin' for a notary to come and fix it up.”

“It's very good, then, that we came as witnesses,” exclaimed Barnes, who was not in the least deceived by the prospector's words.

“Yes, Cash thinks he's got enough out of the Horseshoe to retire with,” said Josh, grinning at his victim. “Sort of hasty call to go to—away from here. Where'd you say you was goin', Vance?”

Vance had shriveled into his seat, despairing, now that he saw the end. He did not answer.

“Speak up when I ask you a question!” ordered the prospector. “You may as well. Frank, here, knows all about it, and it was his girl that saw you drag that stuff out from under Pinnacle Rock. Believe me, you're in the hands of your friends, all right, if ever anybody was.”

With the recklessness of a cornered rat facing the end, Vance suddenly bared his teeth and snarled at the prospector.

“You seem to know so much about it,” he growled, “that it strikes me you know more than you ought to. Who robbed that gold wagon in the first place?”

“I did!” he declared. “Forgot to tell you that, but you're welcome.”

Tom, who had been looking from one to the other, started to step forward and speak, but was interrupted by a voice outside, calling: “Here we are, Josh!”

Specimen Jones, accompanied by the notary carrying his seal, entered. Josh fixed Vance with his eyes and said quietly: “You explain it to him, Cash.”

The latter saw no other avenue of escape than through obedience. He shrugged his shoulders and spoke in a constrained voice.

“I have sold the Horseshoe Mine to Mr. Rogers,” he said to his employee, “and wish you to certify to the transfer. That is my signature.”

The bookkeeper, a white-haired, overworked little man, fumbled in his pocket, produced a pair of spectacles, and affixed his seal. Specimen Jones and Frank Barnes each stepped forward and inscribed their names as witnesses, in a silence that would have been noticeable had not the prospector quietly hummed a tune as if to avert observance of anything unusual.

“I think that's all Mr. Vance wants of you,” he said to the bookkeeper, but frowning at Vance to remind him of their previous talk.

“Yes, you can go now,” said Vance, without looking up.

The notary, with a studious “Good night,” departed. Josh leaned forward, picked up the deed that lay flaring white on the desk, and handed it to his partner.

“Tommy,” he said, “that's a little present from me. We won't talk about it now. You've got the mine that your father found. Vance is goin' to-morrow, and me and Specimen Jones and Frank will come over with you to see that you take possession. So, all this business bein' over and done with, we might as well pull out, because I reckon Vance has got a heap of things to do between now and the next stage.”

He loitered behind while the others filed past, and paused in the doorway only long enough to say, in a growling undertone: “Vance, don't forget. You go to-morrow. And don't you come back, either, because the hankerin' I've got to kill you ain't goin' to peter out. When it comes my time to cash in, I'll probably have but one big regret, and that'll be that I let you get away with it. You're the only man that ever nicked me and lived. And I want you to remember this: that from to-morrow night between you and me there is no truce. I'll shoot on sight!”